Piecing It Together

Piecing It Together

I try and breathe

I take it one day at a time

Every second seems important

More important than the exhale

I hold it in

Because I can’t let go

I try and count

The moments as I lie awake

The intrusive minutes that bleed into the late evening

When the world changes all around, and yet it all feels still

I try and cope

I haven’t found the best solution

I try, and try again

Yet feel failure with each win

As if I know the peace won’t last

I can’t breathe

My cries overpower my lungs

I gasp with each tear as it chokes me

A smell lingers

A familiar stench of alcohol, cigarettes, and young masculine sweat

So bold, but disguised

I can’t talk about it

Can’t say it aloud

Can’t say how when I close my eyes, I still remember

Remember the music from my laptop, still playing

Remember coming in and out of a “dream”

Feeling more than I could see

I remember, and I’ve tried to forget

I can’t count my tears

They fall hard, staccato, and like tiny wet soldiers

They’re quickly discarded so as to not have any evidence of weakness

And just as fast as they’re wiped away, they return, unwanted

I cope by not coping

Afraid to say how terrified I am at times being approached by people I don’t know

I put on a facade of toughness

I am tough, and yet just a bit scared to let any guard down

I scream inside my head, grit my teeth, tremble, and wait for the moment when I can run

I’ll run as fast, hard, and far as I can

I’ll run from you

I’ll run from them

I’ll run from myself

I don’t know where you are

I don’t know why you did this

I don’t know why I wasn’t successful with letting it all go

Because I tried

I tried to go away

And guilt brought me back

Sometimes it gets painfully difficult to stay

I don’t trust the world

And I don’t know how to fully understand reasoning

I need a reason

I need to know how stupid and pathetic I must have looked for that night to even be thought of

I need to know when my clothes became option

I need to know why both

I need to know if I screamed, because it felt as though I should

I need to know if after you regretted what happened

I need to know whether or not you said penance

I silently cry and torture myself into believing I’m over exaggerating

That what happened wasn’t bad enough

Even my own mind wants to say, I don’t believe you

But I remember pieces

Even when I don’t want to, I feel as though I’m there

I just want to end this

End the memories

End the haze

End the tears

End the jolting behavior

More often than not, just end it

And I try everyday to not give in

I try and hold on for family, which makes me feel like a failure even more

Failing to make myself happy, by just focusing on others

I want to one day feel happy, without feeling a mask on top of that feeling

I’m trying

Contemplating (a break)

It’s hard to say it, 

Let alone scream it from the tops of your lungs —

I was assaulted!

Not even able to say the type of assault, 

You sit silently, 

Trying to catch the sight of someone who makes you out.  

Their eyes tell you they don’t believe you, 

Faster than the words coming out of their mouths. 

You clinch down harder on your tears, 

To keep them from showing just how you haven’t dealt, 

Just hardened the shell.  

Those same eyes glossing over without a blink - - wrenching fingers and pulled nails - - parts of hair in one hand - - and blood between teeth and lips. 

That’s how you deal. 

Until you just can’t. 

///////::——

Contemplating staying longer than I’d like utterly destroys me. 

I’m finding it more difficult to find ways other than excessively working out and neglecting food, to distract me from the inevitable. 

That one day I won’t be able to hold off on going through with my plan.  

That the date I’ve pushed back a few times I’ll push closer. 

And feel the breeze one last time as I choose me over them.  

The staying is destroying me, and I am trying to overcome this situation. 

What’s better: painfully living while waiting for the end? 

Or ending the pain just fast enough to feel as though you’ve lived? 

Why?

I'm rushing to feel.  Anything and everything -- wanting to know if I'm still even here.
I've felt guilty since that day, and yet I haven't told you.  I can't.
It was my fault for what happened to you.  And I can't bare to think about the pain you've endured.
And why I'm still even here.

I wish I could retrace the moment to where I messed up.  You tell me what I should know: it wasn't my carelessness that caused this.  And yet I just want to take it all back.  I would do anything to see you free from my mistake(s).  I count them all each day.

And I don't sleep much -- not with knowing what I've done, and that I can't go back and undo it.
If we could trade places, I'd be happy to not have even made it out alive.  Just for you to feel relieved from the journey you must endure.  I ask myself each day and night, as I sit alone, why am I still here?

I can't tell you any of this, because I'd hate to see your sadness show.  I don't tell you I've bottled each moment inside, and it pours over every night. So, I try and not close my eyes.

I have thought about giving up so many times.  And then I remember how I'm the rock that you need.  And that you need me because of what I did.  It's frustrating to know that I can't waste away, because I would leave you in even more pain.  But each day I'm here, I'm feeling my self slowly wasting.  If only I could disappear without causing too much of a disruption.  If only I could go away and vanish from your thoughts, your heart, and from your hurt.

I'd honestly take it all -- just to feel your freedom coming back with my leaving.
I try to shake these moments.  These times are constant.
I'll try harder.  I must convince myself why I'm still even here.  
I want to know why.

Reverie by Luchs

Struggling To Manage

I can't seem to close my eyes.  Not without feeling tears.  I only feel tears, and I don't know why.  Why at this moment, or these moments, when I'm left contemplating my existence?  I'm trying to shake it.  These eyes looking down on me -- from within.  Have you ever felt yourself being watched?  But the eyes are your own?

I can't seem to close my eyes.  Not without feeling fear.  I hold onto that fear, and I don't know why.  Why is it so familiar, this scarce plight I search for, but stop before reaching the door?  I'm trying to push past this.  I want to see the other side -- another side from stagnant emotion.

I look up, close my eyes, then take a deep breath and hold it.  I don't want to exhale, but I do.  I avoid my reflection as I stare into the rain formed pool gathering before me. I don't see myself anymore.  I melt into concrete -- into nothing.  Nothing but a puddle of lost hope.

Imagine/Answers

Where do you runnaway to, when there is no way to get there?
How do you justify moments when being with someone, makes you feel more alone then when you're alone?
When can you determine enough is enough? And that it's time to snap out of it?
How can you smile, showing the most pleasure pleasing, gratifying greeting, when you are screaming inside?
And do you even remember that sound?  The scream -- one held in for so long, like your voice, it trembles, as it fights to be heard.
Where does fight or flight kick in to just living?
When can a group of people laughing, not feel like distant chatter, thrusted into your space?
And why is it calm at night, when no one is around, that you feel safe and heard?

Does closeness mean happiness? Because by standards, if it does, then you are one miserable human being.
Does inner turmoil mean you aren't normal?  Or that you are insane?
Because if it does, why would that be okay to show?

Have you ever imagined peace, serenity, adoration, and a slow hug that actually gave comfort instead of cringing?

Or a white space, filled with cool rain, and penetrating sun rays -- holding you ever so close, but not infringing on your beating heart?

Why is falling so freeing? But standing still cuts?  Though every moment changes.
It creates displacement -- uncertainty -- numbness, yet bouts of life.

Your life. Have you lived? Do you even want to?  Or would it even matter, if your split decision changed after permanently deciding?

Have you loved?  Can you even?  How could you, when you can't find the attraction within?  When your own feeling makes you palpitate, do you hold your breath, close your eyes, and wait?

Wait for life to change, or for your mind to say it's okay?

It's okay to not know.  To not know the answers.  To not know why you're even feeling bombarded.  Or why no one seems to know.  It's okay to hold onto your heart.  To yourself.  Even if there are broken pieces.  Hold onto them.  To yourself.

Love. Even when you feel no one can or will love you.  Love.  Love your fight.  Love your light, even while dimming.  Love yourself.

Glue

It's another Friday, and I'm sitting inside my room.  Nice weather.  It's mid afternoon.  And the blinds remain closed.  I want to travel outside, and feel the air.  But instead, I sit here, beside my three fans.  And let the modified breeze take over.  I don't think of things to do -- fun, exciting, young adult, or 20 something things to do -- because that's just not who I am.  Although, I could be wrong.  I could be that person, wanting to dance the night away.  Going for a drink in a sports bar, while cheering on my favorite team.  I don't know . . . I never really knew, because I let myself stay in too much.  I've become accustomed to taking chances, professionally, and educationally -- more so than personally.  Not that I think of myself as afraid to try.  Just afraid of failure.  And what's to be afraid of, anyway?  

Each day continues to play out the same way.  And I'm drained each morning, thinking of the never changing cycle.  At times though, my focus changes, but not on the positive.  Not on going out and trying something new.  No, instead, my focus switches to daydreaming about a new life.  A new journey.  One that's not on this earth.  You see, I can force myself to think ahead -- way  ahead -- as if nothing matters.  But that's only when EVERYTHING matters.  And when everything is drowning me.  

I'm stuck.  I'm at the point in my life where either I should be out exploring (especially in the city I live in), and having fun.  But I can't.  I don't know why.  I don't understand how I can feel the need for a change, but just can't do it.  

I work hard.  I stay focused.  Big deal -- most people do.  And I put extreme amounts of perfectionist pressure on myself.  Big deal -- again, most people do.  I've had the same mentality of never feeling good enough, ever since I was young.  That, I know, will never go away.  So, I push it aside, not thinking about it, and stay focused.  I continue working hard, never letting myself think of what I could be doing.

And then I take a break -- because someone says, "relax, you've been working too hard.  You need sleep, or to just get away from what you're doing for a little while.  Then go back to it."  So I take their advice, and breathe.  But that's when I feel my throat closing.  When I feel I'm losing control.  Each time I take a break, I'm never really relaxed.  I remain focused on what still hasn't been done.  What needs to be accomplished.  What I haven't gotten right.  And what I know I messed up on.  I can't take the break.

The only break, which comes from me, hyperventilating, is what sends me to cringe.  I break.  This isn't something new.  Or fascinating.  Most people reach their boiling point.  And I do the same.  I control it, to the point nobody knows.  So that I can't make them worry.  You see, I worry about other people reacting to what I'm doing.  

Perfectionist.  That's me.  Always wanting the best -- especially for others.  And when I feel pressure piling up, I hide it.  "No worries," I tell people, who ask how I'm doing.  "Everything's great," I push out of my typing, to those who send me a message to check in.  I don't like speaking on what I'm going through.  Unless it's positive.  Not that I don't think people would want to know, and help.  But, I've always found it difficult to ask for that.  To proclaim I cannot do something.  That I'm not adequate enough.  Even when I do think that, most times -- I can't say it to someone else.  

And as the time continues to change, I continue to sit.  In the same spot I was when I woke up.  I'm taking a break.  A mental break.  And one I'm too familiar with, which breaks me even more.  

It's not every day.  But most days, when I feel drained.  Yet I keep going.  But in the back of my mind, I know I want to stop.  Stop it all.  So, I pretend (to myself) I'm alright.  My self knows better, but it goes with it, anyhow.  On those days, when all I can see is taking another route -- a one way journey, I force myself to continue.  

I don't know how long I'll be able to keep it up.  But for now, I'm still trying.  And although my mind drifts back and forth, between being up and down, I remain upbeat for those I love.  Even when at times, I can't feel the same towards myself.  I'm stuck.  Wanting to get away from it all, on most days.  And feeling nothing, on others.  

I'll take this break, and then I'll get back to being focused.  I need this break, and yet when I'm on it, I'm not really.  But, I'll try and keep going.  I'll try, because I know I'm working towards something I want.  And the perfectionist side of me, won't stop until I make it.  So, I have to make it.  I have to force myself to NOT break.  

Because if I do, I'll never get to feel the real breeze.